As Seen in Vanity Fair's August 2006 Issue!
As Seen in US News & World Report's September 11 Fifth Anniversary Issue!
As Seen in Time Magazine's September 11, 2006 Issue!
As Seen in Phoenix New Times' August 9, 2007 Issue!

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Richard Gage Cites Holocaust Denier Anthony Lawson

As a follow up to James' last post, here's Box Boy Gage at the recent Hartford confab:

Note the bit starting at 1:30 in where he says, "Ten years ago I watched the towers come down on TV and I was just in a state of shock. And I didn't know what I was looking at. None of us had seen that kind of destruction before, save some very explosive events. But you know, we were told that it was an orange, and yet what we're looking at is an apple."

Well, most of you probably know where Richard Gage picked up that particular metaphor:

Anthony Lawson put that video together, and obviously Gage found his presentation compelling. Will he soon be citing evidence from Lawson's new video?

Gage also mentions that he's getting a five minute video on WTC-7 broadcast on PBS nationwide as a filler. "We're paying a lot of money for that." It's good to hear that PBS is seeking alternative means of funding.

BTW, along the lines of James' last post, watch the end of that video of Gage in Hartford. About 17:00 in, Gage starts talking about the "personal sacrifice" he's made for 9-11 Troof; "losing my house, losing my wife... not everybody can handle 9-11, they can't have it around them. It's separating families, it's separating friends, it's separating colleagues, so as long you're--what are you going to do? As soon as you step forward, yes, you'll take some losses, but what are you going to gain? What I've gained is incredible. When I've spoken to groups like this and people look at me in the eye and they're teared (sic) because they are so grateful that somebody is stepping forward and taking the banner...."

Troofers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. And your house. And your wife and your kids....

Friday, April 29, 2011

Time to Make Fun of Richard Gage Again

One of my most entertaining moments writing for this blog came when Alex Jones, who was interviewing Richard Gage for his radio show, attacked debunkers for making fun of the fact that Gage split up with his wife over his truther activities. A fact that we didn't know until he announced it live on the radio.

As we have discussed before, much of the allure of the conspiracy theory lifestyle is that one minute you can be a non-descript employee stuck in suburban cubicle hell, the next minute a brave freedom fighter striking out against the New World Order while being adoringly fawned over by other suburban warriors. Jonathan Kay, in a short preview of his upcoming book, amusingly touches on this sad phenomenon in the Washington Post.

There’s no polite way to say this: Many conspiracy theorists I met were paunchy 40- and 50-something men facing disappointment in their personal lives. In interviews, it seemed clear that they were struggling with midlife crises and trying to reinvent themselves for a new audience.

Consider Sept. 11 conspiracy theorist Richard Gage, an architect who abandoned his business to roam the world preaching the notion that “controlled demolition” brought down the twin towers. “I’ve never been happier,” he told me in 2009. “I feel blessed, in fact. This is my destiny, my mission. I’ve lost my career. I’ve lost my marriage. I’ve lost my house. But I’m working with patriots, spreading the truth about what’s happened to their country. What more could I ask?”

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Steven Jones Once Again Behind the Curve

Disgraced Professor Steven Jones hilariously makes a post on 911 Blogger supporting the lawsuit of April Gallop (assuming it is still up by the time you read this) calling for people to help influence her case in the appeals court, quoting from another article:

You will need to act fast, because the case has already been in the Circuit Court, in Connecticut, for three weeks today, and a ruling can come down soon. If you value your life, you will try to stop that ruling from being an affirmation of the dismissal. Once the dismissal happens, Gallop’s case, with its amazing insights into 9/11, will be legally barred from being adjudicated. It will be like Jim Garrison’s JFK case. “So near and yet so far.…”

I am not sure exactly what either of the authors thought they can do to "stop that ruling". Are they planning on kidnapping the families of the judges or something? Regardless, as Pat pointed out yesterday, the decision has already been made. Her case was not only thrown out but Gallop and her lawyers are being threatened with legal sanctions for bringing such a frivolous suit before the court.

Wow, with cutting edge research like this, I don't know why they haven't blown the lid off of 9/11 already.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Gallop's Appeal Dismissed

No particular surprise here, the appellate court found the case as nutty as the original judge:

We hold that the District Court did not err in concluding that Gallop’s claims were frivolous, and affirm the dismissal of her complaint. In addition, Gallop’s counsel are ordered to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38, 28 U.S.C. ' 1927, and the inherent power of this Court.

Better still, the court notes that the appeal itself was frivolous and threatens Gallop and her lawyers with having to pay the costs of defending against her suit:

Accordingly, Gallop and her counsel are hereby ordered to show cause in writing within thirty days from the date of entry of this order why they should not pay double costs and damages in the amount of $15,000, for which they would be jointly and severally liable, under Rule 38, 28 U.S.C. ' 1927, and the inherent power of this Court.

I like this background:

As the sentient world well recalls, on the morning of September 11, 2001, “agents of the al Qaeda terrorist organization hijacked commercial airplanes and attacked the World Trade Center in New York City and the national headquarters of the Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia.”

As compared to the non-sentient world the Troofers inhabit.

Update: Forgot the hat tip to LashL, the JREF goddess of legal infotainment.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

How America became the land of Truthers, Triggers, Birthers, and Dan Brown fans

It's a familiar rationale for conspiracy theorists: They investigate as much in sorrow as in anger. They are always just one confession away from the truth. This kind of logic is much more understandable, if no more sensible, after reading Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground, a smart and serious new book by Canadian journalist Jonathan Kay. His book shows why Americans are becoming so willing to believe lurid fantasies about the government or politicians they don't like or vaccines or the theory that the federal government was behind the attacks of 9/11 (these believers are the "truthers" of his title). And you realize that the world of conspiracies is only going to get larger.

There are basically two reasons for this, and they're entwined. The media, as Kay points out, is more fragmented than ever. Information is easier to come across, and bogus information has a way of jumping to the top of Google's search pages. That fragmentation is happening at a time of intense partisan anger and economic angst.

Wikileaks Shocker: al Qaeda Behind 9/11

OK, it is sort of a man bites dog story, despite the release of thousands of classified documents, not a single one of them provides anything to show that 9/11 was an inside job. In fact, quite the opposite.

Mohammed boasted in the documents that the "planes operation" of Sept. 11 was his "dream and life's work." A Pakistani raised in Kuwait, he was captured in March 2003, and later was waterboarded 183 times to get him to talk.

He described a plan to build remote-controlled firing devices disguised as Sega video-game cartridges. He began preparations for bombing "the tallest building in California" — presumably the Los Angeles library tower, "using at least two separate shoe bombs to gain access to the cockpit."

He wanted to hit CIA and FBI headquarters and nuclear-power plants, hack into U.S. bank computers and hijack U.S. cargo planes. He discussed natural-gas explosions he wanted to set off in Chicago and researched "the feasibility of an operation to set fire to a hotel or gas station" there.

According to the documents, Binalshibh learned from lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta that the "the targets were the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Capitol," sites selected by Osama bin Laden, and that the al-Qaida leader told the hijackers that "if they could not reach their targets, they were to simply to crash the aircraft." It has long been in dispute whether the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was headed for the Capitol or the White House.

Why Do They Believe In Conspiracy Theories?

The researchers found that “personal willingness to engage in the conspiracies predicted endorsement of conspiracy theories.” So did a propensity to manipulate others for personal gain.

“For example,” they write, “highly Machiavellian individuals were seemingly more likely to believe that government agents staged the 9/11 attacks because they were more likely to perceive that they would do so themselves, if [they found themselves] in the government’s position.”

Indeed, we have often noted this trait among the Truthers; the belief that people would do anything for money because they themselves would do anything for money.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Much Hilarity

In this thread over at Truth Action. It starts out as an observation that the Truthers have become Victor (Thorn) and Lisa (Guliani)'s dream movement. They were early Truthers; it was on their show that Dylan Avery accused Bernard Brown of "sending his son to die."

But the discussion diverges quite a bit from the original topic, and that's where it gets really amusing. When talking about the deep hole "we" are in, Jon Gold notes:

Oh, we definitely need a revolution in this country. Cindy and I tried to start one, but no one showed up.

Yes, many revolutions have started with idiots chaining themselves to fences.

Later, the topic of the insurance on WTC-7 comes up and the discussion becomes quite ridiculous. Remember, this is in a thread where the Troof Action folks are all upset that their movement has become the controlled demolition movement:

I was wondering... the insurance companies had to pay Silverstein billions right? If there was something to "Controlled Demolition" of the buildings, wouldn't the insurance companies investigate that possibility so as to not have to pay Larry?

An insurance company pursuing "controlled demolition"? Fat chance. These people aren't stupid. They know how to assess risk for themselves too.

Yep, the insurance companies didn't laugh the controlled demolition claims off as baseless; they knew the CD folks were right but paid off the insurance policy anyway.

The insurance issue merits investigation by someone who knows the business. On WTC7, the fact that Industrial Risk Insurers paid off the $861 million claim before the FEMA report was even released, and thus with little investigation, strikes me as strange. I bet IRI's investigators anticipated a very interesting project, and were much surprised when the payout was made.

I suspect that the anthrax attacks made the insurers unwilling to challenge the government, even for a $6 billion payout. As I recall, the offices of the National Enquirer in Florida had to be abandoned after anthrax mailed in contaminated the entire building. That would represent a major threat to insurers. Imagine if landmark buildings were dusted with anthrax. Nobody would ever want to work there again, not even after decontamination. The threat to the insurance companies was great.

Friday, April 22, 2011

How Stupid Is....

Steven Jones? He comments on this Eggsperiment:

A great demonstration of Newton's Third Law, and the total inadequacy of the Bazant/NIST official explanation.

May I suggest -- show the Bazant diagram from their paper (which we are challenging) which shows this upper block of floors supposedly acting as a tamper -- due to gravity alone -- and you might also point out that NIST states that the fall is accelerating at "near" free-fall even for the Towers.

They must really think we're stupid or naive...

I can narrow those choices down, Steven. We don't think you're naive.

The Federal government? They're requiring that the first responders who submit health claims under the Zadroga bill be checked against the FBI's terrorist database.

“This amendment was adopted in the full Energy and Commerce Committee without opposition and it merely requires that the names of those receiving health benefits be cross-checked with the terrorist watch list to ensure that no terrorists get these benefits,” Stearns said.

“These benefits are not just for our first responders; nearly anyone who was in the vicinity or worked on a cleanup crew afterward is eligible,” he noted.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Scratch a Truther....

You may recall Anthony Lawson, who did a great job exposing the BS of September Clues, a Truther "No-Planes" video:

Of course, Lawson himself is a Troofer. His sole reason for debunking the no-planers was that he wanted to focus the fruitcakes on different areas of research. However, he's also something of a no-planer himself:

Having been tortured, Rudolf Höss, who was the commander of Auschwitz from 1940 to 1943, almost certainly lied to save the lives of his wife and children. Even if torture and duress cannot not be proven, the overwhelming reason for recognizing the utter falsity of the Höss confession is that the gassing method he described was not scientifically plausible.

Yet Höss’s conviction has stood, by inference, as a testament to the cruelty of Germans in general, since he was tried at Nuremberg, in 1947, and subsequently hanged on April 16th, 1947, in Poland.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Sibel Edmonds: Jews Run the USA

I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you to learn that Sibel is parroting the usual anti-Semitic tropes.

Are the elections results of US presidential elections determined by 2% of the population? Can the five million or so Jewish population be counted as the US majority? Does the Israel lobby shape the majority of US voters’ decisions? Is Israel the main determinant of political elections’ results when it comes to high US public offices? I don’t know your take or answers to these questions, but we do have ‘theirs, on the record, loud and clear, and of course, delivered with hubris and cockiness:

Her proof? Well, an article in the Jerusalem Post notes that some rabbi in Israel claims that Obama's reelection depends on whether or not he releases Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard from prison.

Of course, the rabbi is blowing it out his hindquarters. For one thing, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush managed to get reelected without releasing Pollard. Indeed, Sibel acknowledges this in the comments, but look how she phrases it:

For example: Pollard remained inside through several presidents, and ’some’ got reelected;-)

"Some"? Sibel is clearly trying to imply that the one that didn't, George Bush, Sr., lost because he failed to pardon Pollard. Never mind that, as Wikipedia's page on Pollard notes, the first Israeli effort to free Pollard came during Clinton's first term.

Sibel goes on to make the usual claim about how the Jews control the media:

Click here if you want to read the report detailing how ‘they’ successfully control, direct and shape American media.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Truthers on NPR Connecticut

The Building Wut contingent appeared on something called the Colin McEnroe show yesterday. For the most part, they were calm and collected; Manny Badillo, in particular, presents himself as very soft-spoken and sensible. Note that he sloughs off the question of what he believes happened on 9-11. But in the past he has not been quite so reticent:

Starts about 3:50 in, but at 6:10 Manny uses the classic "9-11 was an inside job" formulation.

But without a doubt, the best part of the current interview comes when "Frank" calls in about 38:10, and asks why with everything else going on in the world, do they focus on 9-11? The response from one of the Connecticut Truthers, Joanne Bauer, is mind-boggling. She believes that all of these issues are interconnected. The first thing she brings up (two "illegal" wars) you can argue is connected to 9-11, certainly. But the next thing is "financial disparities between the rich and the poor" and the thing after that is that Hartford (CT) is one of the poorest cities in America. "This is clearly a result of what happened that day."

Monday, April 18, 2011

Greatest Truther Video Ever

Just to show you how much a Troofer can make up from nothing. I love the part where he expresses amazement that one of his "Men in Black" is eating yogurt. And if you watch through to the end, you'll see, that yes, it's all about the Jews.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Bits and Pieces

Nothing much new to report from the Troofer front. Jesse Ventura was on a radio program the other day with Michael Shermer from Skeptic Magazine. Ventura hit him with "Why haven't they indicted Osama bin Laden for 9-11?" It's a variation on the Sacred List fallacy, which usually gets phrased as "Why doesn't Osama's Most Wanted poster list 9-11 as one of his crimes?"

Of course, the reason is simple. Osama hasn't been indicted for 9-11 because the US already has plenty of indictments against him and there's no particular reason to get more unless and until he's brought into custody.

But what does Ventura think it means? Is there some "Truther" group of US attorneys, bravely refusing to indict Osama because they know 9-11 was really an inside job? And how would Jesse square that with the pending military tribunal of KSM?

Lenny Dykstra, the former baseball player who attracted our attention with his buddy-buddy relationship with Charlie Sheen and Alex Jones, has got more problems.

Former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra was arrested for investigation of grand theft, a day after he was charged with a federal bankruptcy crime, authorities said Friday.

Dykstra, 48, was arrested Thursday night by Los Angeles police at his Encino home on suspicion of trying to buy a stolen car, police spokesman Officer Christopher No said. He did not have other details.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Troofer Media Panel Without Troof

This is a media panel at the recent WTC-7 conference in Hartford. The panel is mostly notable for not discussing the 9-11 attacks in any serious fashion; instead they talk about their own personal conspiracy theories, and how the fact that the media won't cover those stories is the same as the problem facing the "Truthers".

One of the panelists authored (with Robert Kennedy, Jr.) the ridiculous Rolling Stone article claiming that Bush stole Ohio in 2004. I covered that story a long time ago on my politics blog. Relevant passage:

And that's where Kennedy's claim is exposed for the nonsense that it is. You see, these really are rural counties so the idea of shaking an 80,000 vote swing out of them is contrived. Bush got 382,000 votes in those counties, so we reduce that to 302,000. And we up Kerry's 168,000 to 248,000. So Bush got 54.9% in those twelve counties, as compared to his 67.4% the prior election a 12.5 percentage point decline in Bush's share of the major party vote in those twelve counties between 2000 and 2004. How does that stack up with the rest of Ohio? Well, actually Bush didn't lose 12.5 percentage points compared to 2000 in any other county. His worst performance was about a 5 percentage point drop.

I kind of enjoy the ditzy blonde newsbabe; note that she gets her biggest applause when she says something about how someone told her that in order for the conspiracy to succeed, Americans have to be the stupidest people on the planet.

Thursday, April 07, 2011

April's Case Gallops Ahead

Judge Cabranes asked Veale what had happened to the airplane, if, as the lawsuit suggests, it did not hit the Pentagon? Veale asked in response, “How would I know?”. The implied criticism of the irony that a lawyer who has been denied the ability to use the power of subpoena to learn the truth would be chided for not having an answer to the key to the unraveling of the entire conspiracy seemed to be lost on the judge. And the judge gave no sign that he was familiar with the details of the allegations in the Complaint concerning conflicts between the flight path of American 77 according to the NTSB and that same flight path according to the 9/11 Commission, or the scrubbing of the radar tracks of the area at the time of the attacks, or of the counter-intuitive strategy of the suicidal hijacker who chose NOT to kill 20,000 occupants of the building AND Secretary Rumsfeld, but instead flew into a sparsely occupied and recently reinforced section of the building that resulted in 125 deaths including only one flag officer, if one is to accept the government’s version.

Classic Trutherism; never mind that appeal courts are places where you discuss whether the law was properly applied in the case and not the facts.

Update: Richard Gage's Testicles posts the motion to dismiss Judge Walker from the appeal on the basis that he's a cousin of George Bush. You gotta love this part:

2. I am informed and believe that Judge Walker, assigned to the panel that will hear the oral argument in this appeal on April 5th, 2011 in New Haven, Connecticut, is a cousin of former President George W. Bush and of individuals named Wirt D. Walker III, and Marvin Bush.

And then this:

7. I am informed and believe that Wirt D. Walker III is a cousin of former President George Bush. He is either a cousin or a brother of Judge Walker who has been assigned to hear this appeal.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Ventura on Piers Morgan

I love the way the Troofers can incorporate lots of little bits in their "proof" that contradict them, with no apparent difficulty. Jesse provides a classic bit here, when he says that he believes Cheney knew about 9-11 in advance. His evidence? That John Ashcroft switched over to private planes that summer.

But... if Ashcroft knew about the hijackers, why would he shift to private planes? All he would have to do is have the Justice Department screen the passenger manifest. If any of the pilot hijackers were on the list, he could just switch to another flight. And as I have commented in the past, if Ashcroft switched to private planes because he knew about the attacks comimg, doesn't this effectively rule out MIHOP? Because again, he would then know which planes were going to be hijacked?

Monday, April 04, 2011

KSM: Military Tribunal at Gitmo

Furthermore, Mohammad made a complete pre-capture torture-free confession (along with Ramzi Binalshibh) in a Pakistan safe house to Al Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda in 2002, reported at the time and recounted in his book "Masterminds of Terror." Fouda was prepared to be a government witness in either venue. Finally, there was voluminous evidence implicating the five 9/11 Gitmo defendants introduced publicly in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial in Virginia federal court five years ago.

Sunday, April 03, 2011

Losing!

First the U.S. automaker recession, and now this. Charlie Sheen unleashed his Violent Torpedo of Truth Tour on the Motor City on Saturday night before a crowd that greeted the actor with an adoring standing ovation and concluded with booing and walk-outs. The padded and disjointed show was a hodgepodge of video clips and Sheen-isms that felt hastily assembled and misjudged the patience of even the hardest of hardcore fans. Below is our on-the-scene progressive timeline of disaster from Detroit:

9:08 — Sheen: “I am finally here to identify and train the Vatican assassin locked inside each and every one of you.”

9:10 — Sheen’s promises are largely incomprehensible, though at least seem intentionally so: “Freedom from monkey eyed…sweat-eating whores. Freedom from the dour and sour taste of malignant reproach… I’m a giant and leaky bag of mayhem.”

The crowd's reaction reveals the essential difference between people who suck up to you in the hope of getting some of your money (like Lenny Dykstra) and people who actually pay money to listen to your rants.

Friday, April 01, 2011

Fascinating CBS Footage from 9-11

We can see the smoke pouring out of WTC-7 during some early footage, and the building collapses starting around 1:50 (when the penthouse disappears). Note in particular that although the woman is clearly frightened when the building collapses, there are no sounds of ear-splitting explosions prior to the collapse, as happens in controlled demolitions.

Around 20:00 in, there is some very scary footage of somebody walking around after the South Tower collapsed, but before the fall of the North Tower. Starting around 31:00 in, one of the CBS reporters and his cameraman go up close and personal to WTC-7; it's quite gripping footage. I had seen the part where the guy talks about this being as close as he's ever come to a war zone, but not the bit before with the views of WTC-7 as the flames roar.

And who's that who pops up at 43:54? Why, it's Brian Good's bete noir, Willie Rodriguez. For those who missed it, Brian commented in the last post:

Maybe Willie evacuated Felipe David (and maybe not) but I'd hardly call that heroic. Then he went into a burning building. Big deal--the fire was 90 floors above, and everybody knows modern buildings don't fall from fire. Not one person will verify his claim that he climbed to the 39th floor opening doors. David Lim is named in Willie's account six times at least, and Willie is named not once in Lim's account.

By Willie's account, as soon as he learned there was any danger at all, he abandoned his quest to rescue his friends at Windows on the World and he took his allegedly-life-saving "Key of Hope" with him and went to evacuate one man on the 27th floor.If his claim that he saved hundreds of lives by opening doors up to 39 was correct, then by turning back he was abandoning hundreds of people to die. He covers this over by claiming that floors 65 to 43 fell down so they were already dead. It's total baloney. Hundreds of people did not die on floors 65 to 43.

But as you can hear, Willie's story was the same that day. He mentions Lim by name, and talks about a collapse of floor 65. You know what this makes me think of? Way back when, there was a History Channel documentary on the Troofers where a college professor remarked that they want to remake the story so that they're the heroes. Brian Good would have saved everybody in Windows on the World had he been there. And if he'd been at the Pentagon he would have shot down AA77 before it crashed.

But as it is, he can only be a hero on the internet by denying the heroism of others.

Update: Brian tries to rescue his point in the comments (ignoring his being corrected on prior mistakes):

Pat, Willie went into a burning building when the fire was 90 floors away. The only thing that makes his action heroic is if you believe his claims that there were bombs going off--and there's no reason to believe it. As soon as he understood that there was actual danger to himself, he started to leave--and lied about his reason for leaving, claiming a 22-story collapse that never happened.

But what's this:

Lim:"I literally had to kick him out. This guy wanted to stay--"

Of course, Brian Good, the real hero janitor of 9-11 would not have submitted to being kicked out. He would have informed Lim that there was no chance the tower could collapse, and he would have saved everybody in the building. Because that's the kind of guy Brian Good is.